The year was 2004 and the rate of autism was estimated by America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to be 1 in 166. Though the US healthcare system allegedly understood little about the disorder, they did know what theory they needed to thwart. Dr. William Thompson and his CDC coauthors had just finished destroying documents in a garbage can, allowing their 2004 MMR-autism study to absolve the vaccine in the eyes of the government and healthcare system. Importantly, when you publish fraudulent data in journals and that “testimony” is used in courts, Institutes of Medicine hearings, and doctors’ offices nationwide, then you have just imperiled the lives of countless children.

For the mainstream medical community, the idea of recovering a child on the autism spectrum was a nonstarter. The consciousness of many health officials still echoed the days when US medicine blamed a lack of maternal warmth for the onset of autism. However, the 2003 documentary Refrigerator Mothers destroyed that preposterous idea — originally floated by psychiatrists — of parental blame for autism once and for all.

The events continued to unfold while politics and medicine went sleepwalking blindfolded into an autism epidemic that has escalated to dangerous heights. It was during this time that one conference decided to start the discussion that needed to be had. In 2003, AutismOne cut against the grain to uncover vital information about autism, eschewing mainstream political agendas — and it hasn’t stopped since.

Conversely, history has shown that the AutismOne conference has been a crucial forum furthering the discussion toward pioneering health professionals and the parents of children on the autism spectrum to a real understanding of the underlying roots of the “autism” and the autism epidemic. And when you understand the roots of a condition, then you have a chance to heal it.

During its fourteen consecutive years running, the conference and its speakers have, just simply by virtue of speaking the truth and honest science, boldly challenged dangerous government vaccine policy, the pharmaceutical-industrial complex, agrochemical giants and their deleterious products, mainstream medical dogma, and many other historically sensitive areas. However in the US — where the mainstream media is owned solely by the conglomerates being challenged — speaking truth to power comes with a consistent price.

Forbes magazine has dedicated contributors who take jabs at the conference and those with public reputations who dare to tread near it. Both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times do their best to discredit the conference being held in their backyard – instead of helping parents get help for their disabled children. A host of unimportant and historically irrelevant bloggers conveniently churn out anti-AutismOne propaganda each year directly before the conference. There is even a Facebook page dedicated to “exposing” the conference.

For the average parent in the US whose heart broke as they watched their child regress into autism, the mainstream medical system typically had two answers: First the parent was told that their child was born this way. Second, whether through ignorance, indoctrination, or inhumanity, doctors began distributing the only answer they had in their toolbox — pharmaceutical drugs. But the conversation has nonetheless evolved, partly due to the unwillingness of families to accept dead-end answers from health practitioners. In addition, the discussion around recovering children and narrowing down the multifaceted environmental causes of the disorder have been given a chance to breathe and expand, heavily pioneered by the AutismOne forum.

Presently in the US, some conversations are more equal than others. In a short time, the documentary Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe has exposed heavy-handed media censorship when it comes to questioning autism research fraud within the CDC. In addition, the documentary film has been busy gaining viral success as it packs theaters throughout the county. Being endorsed by celebrities, politicians, and wide swaths of the US medical profession, the film has been quickly injected into popular culture, delivering immediate serious adverse events to politicians with conflicts of interest and to poor journalism.

What happens when the most suppressed film in modern day America is combined with arguably the most attacked health conference in America? The uncritical mass of Vaxxed-AutismOne detractors will poke and prod as they may, but to little fanfare. Mainstream journalists will collect their paychecks while simultaneously losing readers for producing hit pieces attempting to once again discredit the conference and its screening of the controversial film. However, the fundamental point is the option to have personal choice, make informed health decisions, and the freedom to review all the information no matter how many inconvenient truths it contains. Journalists and willful attackers continually speak from an abusive point of power and authority without having attended AutismOne or having viewed Vaxxed in most instances. It is interesting to note that the opposite appears to happen rarely — mainstream journalists have never recommended the movie or the conference without attending them. So what gives attackers — at any level — the right to tell someone not to educate themselves as they see fit? Especially when those seeking education and answers for their loved ones have been turned away and left in the cold by the very establishment being protected by the attackers.